


Twelfth Star

by christallized



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fiction, Gen, Short Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28618770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christallized/pseuds/christallized
Summary: Stars are often associated with the intangible, dreams that we look towards and impossibles we try to make possible.These are twelve such stars.
Kudos: 4





	1. The First Star

Under a little tree was a little house with one door and two windows, one window broken, the other covered in boards. In this little house was a little (but full) bookshelf, a little ticking clock on the floor, and a little girl in a threadbare dress.

 _Tick_ , and the little clock reverberated in the empty room.

The girl had no name, and no need for one. She had no family or friends, nothing but a little house under a little tree. She did not have much of anything, really. She did not even have grief, to let tears run down her dirt-covered cheeks and mourn what she did not have.

 _Tick_ , and something else was gone, not important enough to be missed.

And yet, to this girl with little of anything, she felt as though she might hold the entire world. Her pockets were full of dust and her house was empty of warmth, but she had a bookshelf that was full of stories, and to this nameless girl, that was enough.

 _Tick,_ and any wisdom that could have saved her was choked in silence.

Some books offered empty promises, little white lies in black ink dotting the footnotes and cowering in the corners of withered pages. Other books told many things about very little, the same story re-purposed and reused until the pages were worn thin and what little of the paper that hadn't crumbled was predictable enough that the missing pages didn't fill much of anything.

 _Tick,_ and little words made reality feel insignificant.

But the nameless girl found fulfillment in these stories. Her hopes were vivid enough to create beautiful memories out of empty dreams, and thrived on an emptiness that masqueraded as an escape. Even when the stories were committed to memory and the books were no longer readable, she recited them, again and again, like an old clock methodically recording time.

 _Tick,_ and another story, read and finished.

 _Tick_ , and the book crumbles to dust in her fingers.

 _Tick_ , and the girl resumes again, turning pages that no longer exist.

_Tick._

_Tick._

_..._

Under a little tree was a little house with a missing door and two holes for windows. In this little house was a little (empty) bookshelf, a little broken clock on the floor, and a little girl in a threadbare dress.

And the girl was empty.


	2. The Second Star

Gravel scraped across her skin as she crawled, little white lines across her forearms and legs that eventually turned red with specks of blood.

Behind her, gunfire. Above her, ruins. In front of her, darkness.

To retrace was to die.  
To stay was to die.  
To go forward was to die.

This was a girl with no name. Perhaps she had a name before, but it was torn from her throat and crushed into the mud. No one cared to salvage her name from the rubble.

Ahead of her was a series of tunnels-left, right, and up. She could still hear gunfire, and the distant echo of an explosion that sent tremors through her shredded skin and fear spiking through her limbs.

To go left was to die.  
To go forward was to die.  
To go up was to die.

She picked a path. She had to pick a path eventually, before the dread of acting passively killed her first. No one else would save her.

She had to do something. She felt her resolve in the blood on her forearms and the sweat on her neck, the only things that were keeping her alive. She had to make decisions, take action.

With enough work, enough action, she might pull herself out of this war zone. She might survive if she kept running, she lied to herself, again and again.

She knew.  
To go forward was to die.  
To stay was to die.  
To go back was to die.  
To hide was to die.  
To run was to die.  
To live was to die.

This was a girl who was tearing herself apart to keep the world from doing it.


	3. The Third Star

There once was a city full of life and vibrancy.

There was a man in a red suit, standing at the corner of an old building, sheltering himself from the light but persistent rain. Passing by with a cordial wave was a little boy on a green bike, a box jostling in the handlebar's basket. Behind him, a lady with no front teeth. To the left, a brokenhearted lover. Crossing the street, a family huddled together under a too-small umbrella.

And in a window, watching from above, a girl with no name.

She had no name because she did not have an identity to give this name to. She did not partake in the world, but watched. This was all she knew, and she didn't wish for anything different. Every day, she learned more of everyone else's stories and lost the chance to make her own.

A dog trotted down the street, ignorant of the people around it. A torn left ear-maybe from a fight? A rotund definition to his stomach, a refusal to flinch at the cars that sped mere inches from his nose-this dog had a story.

A boy, no more than three years old, wandered out of a brightly colored shop, thumb hooked into the corner of his mouth. A lady dashed out of the shop seconds later, arms laden with bags as she grabbed him under the armpits and carried him back inside. These two had a story.

A distant passage of words-angry, threatening-caught the nameless girl's ear. Leaning over an old car was a girl in a low cut top, her face sticking into the open window as she shouted at the driver. The driver repeated a phrase-indistinguishable from this distance-again and again, and the girl tried to speak over him, but the engine of the car sputtered to life. She jerked her head out of the car as it sped down the street. Three seconds later she ran after, still shouting. They had a story.

The whistle of a faraway train. A story.

A bundle of graduation balloons floated into the sky. A story.

The three-year-old boy wandering out of the store again. A story.

The nameless girl had no such story.

This girl had no distinct features, no story to tell. She had no tales marked as scars in her skin, no gestures that betrayed any secrets of her mind. There was nothing in her room that gave any indication that she had ever made a choice of her own. She was a passive observer, watching the world below.

She was a blank canvas in a gallery of masterpieces.


	4. The Fourth Star

The road was always the same-dust and mud clumped together, not enough moisture to bond them together. Enough dirt to cake the bottoms of her bare feet. Enough dust to get kicked up when she stepped, resting between her toes and in the hair on her legs.

"I'm going home," she said to herself.

This was a girl with no name-not yet. She was going to find one. At the end of the road there was a family, a place for her.

"What do you think my name will be?" She asked a willow tree, bending over the road to offer a few scarce moments of relief from the sun.

The willow did not give her a name.

"Excuse me," she asked a cluster of rocks lining the entrance to a cave. "Do you know how much longer until I'm home?"

The rocks did not say a word.

"When can I stop walking?" She muttered to the road beneath her feet. The only answer it gave was a path that led far beyond her eyesight.

The girl with no name didn't particularly mind. She walked down the road, mud and dust behind her and ahead of her. No, that wasn't entirely true. She minded sometimes.

"I'll make it home," she said to herself, as many times as she felt like it wasn't true until she believed it again.

What was home like? Was it beautiful? Was there a place where she could put up her feet and finally stop walking?

There must be. Home would be grand. There'd be the softest chair to sit on, a name of her own, and people she could talk with.

"I want a name, and I'm going to find it," she told herself.

"I want a home, and I'm going to reach it."

"I want to rest."

The worst of her desires, spoken in a whisper. This one wasn't a want that she could hold to her chest-this one betrayed her, made her other dreams unachievable. Rest would have to wait, if she wanted a name and a home.

"Where is home?"

The burning in her legs had been replaced with numbness long ago, but her legs still wanted rest. No. She didn't want that yet.

"What's my name?"

Her feet dragged, but she forced herself to ignore their whines. She would stop when she reached home. Until then, keep walking.

"I'm going home," she said, and believed it.


End file.
